


Lessons

by MorbidFixation



Category: The Giver (2014), The Giver Series - Lois Lowry
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 23:18:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9791558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorbidFixation/pseuds/MorbidFixation
Summary: That, Jonas, was death’





	

As soon as it started Jonas wanted it to stop. 

He didn’t want these memories. They felt wrong. So much sadness. Woman sobbed over a box and despite everything he felt himself moving closer, the cries and sniffles deafening in his ears. It was a body. _A corpse_ his mind supplied, of an older man. His face ashen and his skin like wax. Jonas reached forward, dragging his fingers across his cheek, and gasped, wrenching his hand away. The man was cold, like the snow beneath the red sled.

  
The memory flickered again, the scenery giving way to trees and thick smoke. Jonas startled, a man falling into him, clawing at him with fear in his eyes. His lips stained a violent red as he coughed, Jonas flinched at the droplet that found his skin. He staggered back, letting the man drop limp to the ground, his hand wiping at his face only come back red.

  _‘Blood’_.  
He pulled his eyes away feeling them widen and his chest pounds as he finally looked around. All around him, bodies. Some in pieces, coveted in the violent red that is blood. All around him chaos. The shrill whistle of bullets as they cut people in two. Blood bubbling from their mouths as their screams cut short before dropping to the ground in heaps. Lifeless and still.

  
He didn’t want this. Couldn’t take seeing another second of the carnage and bloodshed. He felt sick. He had to go. He had to leave. He couldn’t take it. He couldn’t take it.

  
Jonas yanked back with everything in him, pulling himself back from the memories and away from the Giver, stumbling over his feet and crashing to the floor with a gasp. He pulled in lungful after lungful of air as he tried to pull himself back. He could still hear their screams, could still taste the gunpowder in the air. Could still smell the blood and rot and fear. To say he was scared would’ve been an understatement. Scared couldn’t convey the emotion Jonas felt. Terror, maybe. With every blink he could see it. Their faces. The blood. Their decaying bodies in heaps. Jonas couldn’t breath. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. How could someone do that? How could that happen?  
  


Through the haze, Jonas heard a voice. Felt warmth on his cheeks that startled him away from the memory, finally bringing him back. The giver crouched before him, a look of terror on his face as he watched the young boy. His hands cradling Jonas wet cheeks as he instructed him to breathe, repeating the words over and over again _‘breathe in, breathe out’_ until the younger man’s fear began to subside. The giver retreated to his chair, eyeing the trembling boy with concerned eyes as he stumbled to his feet, his hands gripping the wood until it groaned beneath his fingers and his knuckles were white.

  
'That, Jonas, was death’ the Giver said finally, his voice soft as if afraid Jonas would startle. It felt like a knife.


End file.
